The answer was ready. True ministers of Christ are never at a loss in answering the inquiries of awakened sinners. When the Philippian jailer came trembling to Paul and Silas, and fell down before them, exclaiming—“What must I do to be saved?” “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved,” was the prompt and appropriate answer.
So Peter, on the day of Pentecost, when three thousand conscience-smitten and heart-broken hearers cried out under the sermon—“What shall we do?” immediately replied—“Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ, for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost; for the promise is unto you, and to your children, and to all that are afar off, even as many as the Lord our God shall call.”
And so in the sermon whence we have taken our text, when he saw that the truth had found its way to the understanding, and the conscience, and the heart—that many were awakened, and convinced of sin—he exhorted them to repentance and faith in Christ, as the condition of salvation:—“Repent ye, therefore, and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out, when the times of refreshing shall come from the presence of the Lord; and he shall send Jesus Christ, who before was preached unto you; whom the heaven must receive until the times of restitution of all things.”
The doctrine of this text is—the necessity of Christ’s return to heaven till the consummation of his mediatorial work.
It is generally admitted, that the twenty-second psalm has particular reference to Christ. This is evident from his own appropriation of the first verse upon the cross:—“My God! my God! why hast thou forsaken me?” The title of that psalm is—“Aijeleth Shahar;” which signifies—A hart, or—the hind of the morning. The striking metaphors which it contains are descriptive of Messiah’s peculiar sufferings. He is the hart, or hind of the morning, hunted by the black prince, with his hell-hounds—by Satan, and all his allies. The “dogs,” the “lions,” the “unicorns,” and the “strong bulls of Bashan,” with their devouring teeth, and their terrible horns, pursued him from Bethlehem to Calvary. They beset him in the manger, gnashed upon him in the garden, and wellnigh tore him to pieces upon the cross. And still they persecute him in his cause, and in the persons and interests of his people.
The faith of the church anticipated the coming of Christ, “like a roe or a young hart,” with the dawn of the day promised in Eden; and we hear her exclaiming in the Canticles—“The voice of my beloved! behold, he cometh, leaping upon the mountains, and skipping upon the hills!” She heard him announce his advent in the promise—“Lo, I come to do thy will, O God!” and with prophetic eye, saw him leaping from the mountains of eternity to the mountains of time, and skipping from hill to hill throughout the land of Palestine, going about doing good. In the various types and shadows of the law, she beheld him “standing by the wall, looking forth at the windows, showing himself through the lattice;” and then she sung—“Until the day break, and the shadows flee away, turn, my beloved, and be thou like the roe or the young hart upon the mountains of Bether!” Bloody sacrifices revealed him to her view, going down to the “vineyards of red wine;” whence she traced him to the meadows of gospel ordinances, where “he feedeth among the lilies”—to “the gardens of cucumbers,” and “the beds of spices;” and then she sung to him again—“Make haste”—or, flee away—“my beloved! be thou like the roe or the young hart upon the mountains of spices!”
Thus she longed to see him, first “on the mountain of Bether,” and then “on the mountain of spices.” On both mountains she saw him eighteen hundred years ago, and on both she may still trace the footsteps of his majesty and his mercy. The former he hath tracked with his own blood, and his path upon the latter is redolent of frankincense and myrrh.
Bether signifies division. This is the craggy mountain of Calvary; whither the “Hind of the morning” fled, followed by all the wild beasts of the forest, and the hunting-dogs of hell; summoned to the pursuit, and urged on, by the prince of perdition; till the victim, in his agony, sweat great drops of blood—where he was terribly crushed between the cliffs, and dreadfully mangled by sharp and ragged rocks—where he was seized by Death, the great greyhound of the bottomless pit—whence he leaped the precipice, without breaking a bone; and sunk in the dead sea, sunk to its utmost depth, and saw no corruption.
Behold the “Hind of the morning” on that dreadful mountain! It is the place of skulls, where death holds his carnival in companionship with worms, and hell laughs in the face of heaven. Dark storms are gathering there—convolving clouds, charged with no common wrath. Terrors set themselves in battle-array before the Son of God; and tempests burst upon him, which might sweep all mankind in a moment to eternal ruin. Hark! hear ye not the subterranean thunder? Feel ye not the tremor of the mountain? It is the shock of Satan’s artillery, playing upon the Captain of our salvation. It is the explosion of the magazine of vengeance. Lo, the earth is quaking, the rocks are rending, the graves are opening, the dead are rising, and all nature stands aghast at the conflict of divine mercy with the powers of darkness. One dread convulsion more, one cry of desperate agony, and Jesus dies—an arrow has entered into his heart. Now leap the lions, roaring, upon their prey; and the bulls of Bashan are bellowing; and the dogs of perdition are barking; and the unicorns toss their horns on high; and the devil, dancing with exultant joy, clanks his iron chains, and thrusts up his fettered hands in defiance toward the face of Jehovah!
Go a little farther upon the mountain, and you come to “a new tomb hewn out of the rock.” There lies a dead body. It is the body of Jesus. His disciples have laid it down in sorrow, and returned weeping to the city. Mary’s heart is broken, Peter’s zeal is quenched in tears, and John would fain lie down and die in his Master’s grave. The sepulchre is closed up and sealed, and a Roman sentry placed at its entrance. On the morning of the third day, while it is yet dark, two or three women come to anoint the body. They are debating about the great stone at the mouth of the cave. “Who shall roll it away?” says one of them. “Pity we did not bring Peter or John with us.” But arriving, they find the stone already rolled away, and one sitting upon it, whose countenance is like lightning, and whose garments are white as the light. The steel-clad, iron-hearted soldiers lie around him, like men slain in battle, having swooned with terror. He speaks:—“Why seek ye the living among the dead? He is not here; he is risen; he is gone forth from this cave victoriously.”